Page 1 of The Sum of All Our Fears (SPOILERS I suppose)

It struck me while I was watching the news yesterday afternoon that this terrorist attack in the States is not so far removed from the conclusion of the Tom Clancy novel "Debt of Honour".

At the end of the book, where the USA has been at war with Japan, a Japanese pilot crashes his 747 into Capitol Hill, killing the vast majority of the US Government.

DanB

This item was edited on Wednesday, 12th September 2001, 11:20

Yup,

And much of the story of "Executive Orders" follows how the Preseident handles this and subsequent attacks, and how he chooses to respond.

My personal opinion on this is that the US will respond, but not alone, and not in a constrained way. I think we will see a quiet period of investigation and intelligence gathering followed by a sudden bout of retribution involving attacks on terrorists and support organisations which have previously or currently threatened the United States. As a Canadian colleague of mine said, the USA will use this attack as a reason the "clean house". They will determine a whole series of targets and take them out, probably spectacularly.

And they won`t be alone. I expect that any operation will, by deliberate design, be an international one involving the US, UK, Russia, and maybe Germany and France also. The key point that is being pressed home by every government official around the world (ok, excluding Iraq and Afghanistan), is that this is not just a US problem. It is an international one, requiring an international response.

The time has come to deal decisively with terrorism on a world scale. I fully expect that a coordinated effort will now be made to achieve just such a goal.

Incidentally, the death toll from this attack is liable to reach into the many thousands - my best guess would be around 8 to 10 thousand dead or seriously hurt - a level not incompatible with a small nuclear attack.

In "Sum of All Fears" the finale involves the political ramifications of a decision made by the President that, at first glance, appears appropriate. In the end however, the choice is a poor one.

The clamour by those who feel we should bomb Kabul or attack Baghdad is ill-advised. There are much better ways to get the people who are responsible for this, and those who support them. Targets can be picked that will send the strongest possible message without needing to resort to acts that will result in that most trivialising of euphemisms, "collateral damage".

We now await the decisions to be made by the US leadership to see how George W. Bush behaves under the most extreme circumstances. Hopefully he will receive good advice, from home and abroad, on what the appropriate response should be. I personally don`t have the answer except to say that when it comes, and it will come, America`s revenge will be a terrible thing.

After the successful attack ion Pearl Harbor in 1941, the Japanese Admiral Yamamoto, who had masterminded and carried out the attack on the US Pacific fleet, stated that he believed, "we have done nothing more than wake a sleeping tiger".

Let us not forget that the USA is the most militarily powerful nation on Earth, bar none.

I`ve got a book by either Steven Coonts or Dale Brown (can`t remember which) that centres on arab terrorists hijacking planes and crashing them into large American buildings, primarily airport terminals.

The book details the chaos caused by the shutdown of air travel, the dilemna of what to do about planes flying - i.e. do you shoot them down? and the vulnerability of the US (or any other countyr for that matter) to aerial attack from commercial jetliners.

Frightening.

Even more amazing is the fact the the US has admitted that Bin Laden`s supporters were on the planes hijacked yesterday and their names appeared on the passenger lists. Surely the computer system would flag up terrorists and alert the authorities, or is the security really that bad?

At last I have found people who read the same as me ! I have read all of Tom Clancys books and what happened yesterday sure did strike a cord, uncanny or what. Either Tom has insider information or he is a very very clever writer !

The same thought occurred to me as I heard yesterday about what had happened.

Incidentally, there`s a letter from Tom Clancy in today`s Daily Telegraph letters section entitled "Another Pearl Harbour?". I`ll cut and paste the link below for anyone who`s interested. Clancy quotes Admiral Yamamoto, who warned the Japanese Navy after Pearl Harbour that all they had done was succeed in waking a sleeping dragon.

http://www.dailytelegraph.co.uk/dt?ac=005424463700271&rtmo=fwqoMsfs&atmo=YbA37bYp&pg=/ixletters.html